Part 2
Friday the 11th, we actually decided to spend the day doing laundry at the little laundry mat by the hotel. Charlie went down there with the big loads of laundry while I stayed in and washed stuff in the sink and got lunch... stuff like that. After 2 1/2 weeks of traveling we needed a day to regroup and feel more clean and organized. That night we went back to this little Italian Bistro that we had discovered, its really good food! Although a vegetarian salad for them includes big slabs of dead fish... their pasta is really really good. :)
(Also this is the day that our new little puppy back home in California was born, he's one of 2 boys in a litter of 6 and he should be coming to live with us early-mid September
we got the email just a few days later and are soooo excited!!!! So I had to include you all in on the new addition (a dog) to our family! I'll let you know more when we know.)
Saturday the 12th we decided to enjoy a light breakfast and then walk over the the Jardin des Plantes - which is great, they have botanical gardens, a menagerie (zoo) and tons of trails all over the place.
(I'm a fan...)
(Reptile house... but its still pretty - haha)
(My little friend who was quite animated for supposedly being nocturnal)
We spent most of the day there, just walking around/exploring. It is really beautiful and peaceful.
Sunday the 13th we went and walked the Champs de Elysees, we took the metro to the station that lets out right at the Arc de Triomphe.
(we didn't go in, no worries)
Monday the 14th was Bastille Day, which is France's Independence day! Its a huge deal here, with festivals in every village, a parade down the Champs de Elysees, music concert on the Champs de Mars (the grassy area by the Eiffel Tower) finished off with a firework show off of the tower. So Charlie and I decided to join in the celebrating since we missed 4th of July back home. We got up relatively early, got breakfast in the hotel (overpriced) and headed out to the Champs de Mars to spend the day there. It was a gorgeous day - but HOT!!!!!
(our future home - these apartments/condos look right at the eiffel tower!)
We went through several water bottles by mid-afternoon and had to move to an area with more trees because we could feel ourselves burning... and we burnt pretty bad. :( We walked out of the park area down a street to get food for lunch and then dinner - sandwiches and pastries are always a safe thing for me to get so we're enjoying them as much as possible. :)
(again, I can't help but love them and give into them when they're looking at me behind the class counter...)
(We bought little journals, which Charlie spent most of the afternoon writing in)
(sunset)
So after being there for 12 hours, hearing James Blunt sing 3 songs during the concert and watching the sun go down behind the tower, it began to sparkle... from what Charlie said they did it for a special occasion a while back (I'll have to ask him which one) and everyone liked it so much that they've kept it going... so as the sun goes down it sparkles! Pretty awesome if you ask me! We endured the drunk AMERICAN teenagers who thought smoking pot while drunk would be an awesome idea... :\ idiots... really, one girl got so sick she stubbled INTO my back on her way to barf up her socks, while all the French people looked at them with disgust. I've decided that smoke of any kind (unless its a fire in a fireplace...or fire pit to roast marshmallows), I can't stand! My eyes were no bueno by the end of the night... but anyways... after the music ended the attention turned to the tower, the flares went off to warn planes not to come around because of the show - then boom! The show began, and wouldn't you know that we were on the wrong side of the tower to actually see the fireworks??? :( We ran, along with the other 20,000 people to try to get around to the front over the bridge to get a good view... ya, it didn't work - so we went back out to the grassy area and tried to get as good of a view as we could. Granted any view of the tower is good, but it was quite disappointing. The show was amazing, and they played the entire last piece of an opera, I forgot the name, but it was BEAUTIFUL!!!!
(beautiful huh?)
(our view of the fireworks - before running back and trying to see from another angle)
Tuesday the 15th, we decided that staying still and letting our sunburn heal would probably be the best policy - thankfully I remembered my aloe vera because that is our new best friend!!! We watched odd movies on the television - Italian tv to me is a mystery? lol We slept on and off and I finally braved a hot shower on my back and got ready to go out to dinner at our Italian place for our last night - but it was closed (things here are closed all the time... must be nice for the workers... but it sucks for those of us you want to eat the yummy food. sigh) So we wondered around for a bit, on the hunt for a good meal and voila! we found Mediterranean food!!!!! I've never been so happy to see a falafel!
So I got a little "sandwich" and was in Heaven! Funny how much food can affect one's mood and outlook on life. haha then we headed down and actually went into some of the shops around, I bought a little dress for Cannes and we then decided that the gelato place would be a good treat for the evening (after a day spent in pain from the sun..) To our happy surprise they had tons of yummy flavors, and now we wish we had discovered it sooner.
I love how they make it look all pretty too! :) I got banana and nutella (yes, nutella people, I'm an addict!) and Charlie got yogurt (like pinkberry) and kiwi. Wonderful!!! We walked down to a little park we had discovered and enjoyed our treats while soaking up our last night in Paris.
Wednesday the 16th was our last day there in the Latin Quarter, we were heading to Tours for a few days.
(view from our hotel room)
We packed most of our stuff the night before so we just woke up, got ready, ate breakfast and checked out. Thankfully we were able to leave our luggage there, since we had to check out at 10:30 and we didn't have to be at the train station until 3:00. We wondered around the area again, enjoying our time as much as possible. After a little bit we found a little bakery "boulangerie" and got some food for lunch - then walked over to the Pantheon and sat down on the steps to eat our lunch :) We had an excellent view of the Eiffel Tower. :)
(tarte with tons of veggies and french cheese - it was really good)
(our spot for lunch - Pantheon steps)
We decided to then walk to the Luxembourg Gardens and enjoy our eclaire
and then walk through the grounds and see the place. Its actually really really cool there! They have this big "pond"/fountain where kids can rent boats and have them sail around and its filled with families of ducks - which of course made Charlie happy. :)
As you walk around on the paths, it was interesting because they have a lot of more "modern" art on display and its right next to some very old statues and fountains all surrounded by established greenery and buildings.
I've decided that in these gardens and parks, one could seriously spend all day long walking around, eating a picnic, playing games or sports... its just so relaxing! This is what the lifestyle is like for many who live here, and I'm pretty sure its amazing!... and I'm going to miss it very very much when we get home. Anywho - we walked back to our hotel and picked up our luggage, said goodbye to our hotel
walked down our little street to the metro station and made our way to the train station to leave for Tours!
the train ride was only an hour long - which I slept through after reading only a page of my vogue (uk version of course). We got a taxi to the hotel, checked in and relaxed for an hour or so... traveling is quite stressful. haha We had to wait for the restaurant to open to eat dinner there at the hotel, we were a few miles out of the town - otherwise we would've walked to a market or something. The dinner was amazing though - they had NOTHING on the menu except for a selection of French cheeses (which is a meal-ender) for me to eat... so I told the waiter that I'm a veggie and asked if there was anything that they could make for me? He said no problem, and a little bit later he returned with this amazing bread-like dish that was almost like a rizotto... mushroom creme wrapped in roasted red bell peppers and a potato cake of some kind... it was sooooo good. I'm always impressed by chefs who can do that - especially here where they obviously don't know what a vegetarian is. :\ We had excellent desserts, headed upstairs and fell promptly asleep. Its nice to get to sleep. haha
More on Tours later...
Friday the 11th, we actually decided to spend the day doing laundry at the little laundry mat by the hotel. Charlie went down there with the big loads of laundry while I stayed in and washed stuff in the sink and got lunch... stuff like that. After 2 1/2 weeks of traveling we needed a day to regroup and feel more clean and organized. That night we went back to this little Italian Bistro that we had discovered, its really good food! Although a vegetarian salad for them includes big slabs of dead fish... their pasta is really really good. :)
(Also this is the day that our new little puppy back home in California was born, he's one of 2 boys in a litter of 6 and he should be coming to live with us early-mid September
we got the email just a few days later and are soooo excited!!!! So I had to include you all in on the new addition (a dog) to our family! I'll let you know more when we know.)
Saturday the 12th we decided to enjoy a light breakfast and then walk over the the Jardin des Plantes - which is great, they have botanical gardens, a menagerie (zoo) and tons of trails all over the place.
(I'm a fan...)
(Reptile house... but its still pretty - haha)
(My little friend who was quite animated for supposedly being nocturnal)
We spent most of the day there, just walking around/exploring. It is really beautiful and peaceful.
Sunday the 13th we went and walked the Champs de Elysees, we took the metro to the station that lets out right at the Arc de Triomphe.
(we didn't go in, no worries)
Monday the 14th was Bastille Day, which is France's Independence day! Its a huge deal here, with festivals in every village, a parade down the Champs de Elysees, music concert on the Champs de Mars (the grassy area by the Eiffel Tower) finished off with a firework show off of the tower. So Charlie and I decided to join in the celebrating since we missed 4th of July back home. We got up relatively early, got breakfast in the hotel (overpriced) and headed out to the Champs de Mars to spend the day there. It was a gorgeous day - but HOT!!!!!
(our future home - these apartments/condos look right at the eiffel tower!)
We went through several water bottles by mid-afternoon and had to move to an area with more trees because we could feel ourselves burning... and we burnt pretty bad. :( We walked out of the park area down a street to get food for lunch and then dinner - sandwiches and pastries are always a safe thing for me to get so we're enjoying them as much as possible. :)
(again, I can't help but love them and give into them when they're looking at me behind the class counter...)
(We bought little journals, which Charlie spent most of the afternoon writing in)
(sunset)
So after being there for 12 hours, hearing James Blunt sing 3 songs during the concert and watching the sun go down behind the tower, it began to sparkle... from what Charlie said they did it for a special occasion a while back (I'll have to ask him which one) and everyone liked it so much that they've kept it going... so as the sun goes down it sparkles! Pretty awesome if you ask me! We endured the drunk AMERICAN teenagers who thought smoking pot while drunk would be an awesome idea... :\ idiots... really, one girl got so sick she stubbled INTO my back on her way to barf up her socks, while all the French people looked at them with disgust. I've decided that smoke of any kind (unless its a fire in a fireplace...or fire pit to roast marshmallows), I can't stand! My eyes were no bueno by the end of the night... but anyways... after the music ended the attention turned to the tower, the flares went off to warn planes not to come around because of the show - then boom! The show began, and wouldn't you know that we were on the wrong side of the tower to actually see the fireworks??? :( We ran, along with the other 20,000 people to try to get around to the front over the bridge to get a good view... ya, it didn't work - so we went back out to the grassy area and tried to get as good of a view as we could. Granted any view of the tower is good, but it was quite disappointing. The show was amazing, and they played the entire last piece of an opera, I forgot the name, but it was BEAUTIFUL!!!!
(beautiful huh?)
(our view of the fireworks - before running back and trying to see from another angle)
Tuesday the 15th, we decided that staying still and letting our sunburn heal would probably be the best policy - thankfully I remembered my aloe vera because that is our new best friend!!! We watched odd movies on the television - Italian tv to me is a mystery? lol We slept on and off and I finally braved a hot shower on my back and got ready to go out to dinner at our Italian place for our last night - but it was closed (things here are closed all the time... must be nice for the workers... but it sucks for those of us you want to eat the yummy food. sigh) So we wondered around for a bit, on the hunt for a good meal and voila! we found Mediterranean food!!!!! I've never been so happy to see a falafel!
So I got a little "sandwich" and was in Heaven! Funny how much food can affect one's mood and outlook on life. haha then we headed down and actually went into some of the shops around, I bought a little dress for Cannes and we then decided that the gelato place would be a good treat for the evening (after a day spent in pain from the sun..) To our happy surprise they had tons of yummy flavors, and now we wish we had discovered it sooner.
I love how they make it look all pretty too! :) I got banana and nutella (yes, nutella people, I'm an addict!) and Charlie got yogurt (like pinkberry) and kiwi. Wonderful!!! We walked down to a little park we had discovered and enjoyed our treats while soaking up our last night in Paris.
Wednesday the 16th was our last day there in the Latin Quarter, we were heading to Tours for a few days.
(view from our hotel room)
We packed most of our stuff the night before so we just woke up, got ready, ate breakfast and checked out. Thankfully we were able to leave our luggage there, since we had to check out at 10:30 and we didn't have to be at the train station until 3:00. We wondered around the area again, enjoying our time as much as possible. After a little bit we found a little bakery "boulangerie" and got some food for lunch - then walked over to the Pantheon and sat down on the steps to eat our lunch :) We had an excellent view of the Eiffel Tower. :)
(tarte with tons of veggies and french cheese - it was really good)
(our spot for lunch - Pantheon steps)
We decided to then walk to the Luxembourg Gardens and enjoy our eclaire
and then walk through the grounds and see the place. Its actually really really cool there! They have this big "pond"/fountain where kids can rent boats and have them sail around and its filled with families of ducks - which of course made Charlie happy. :)
As you walk around on the paths, it was interesting because they have a lot of more "modern" art on display and its right next to some very old statues and fountains all surrounded by established greenery and buildings.
I've decided that in these gardens and parks, one could seriously spend all day long walking around, eating a picnic, playing games or sports... its just so relaxing! This is what the lifestyle is like for many who live here, and I'm pretty sure its amazing!... and I'm going to miss it very very much when we get home. Anywho - we walked back to our hotel and picked up our luggage, said goodbye to our hotel
walked down our little street to the metro station and made our way to the train station to leave for Tours!
the train ride was only an hour long - which I slept through after reading only a page of my vogue (uk version of course). We got a taxi to the hotel, checked in and relaxed for an hour or so... traveling is quite stressful. haha We had to wait for the restaurant to open to eat dinner there at the hotel, we were a few miles out of the town - otherwise we would've walked to a market or something. The dinner was amazing though - they had NOTHING on the menu except for a selection of French cheeses (which is a meal-ender) for me to eat... so I told the waiter that I'm a veggie and asked if there was anything that they could make for me? He said no problem, and a little bit later he returned with this amazing bread-like dish that was almost like a rizotto... mushroom creme wrapped in roasted red bell peppers and a potato cake of some kind... it was sooooo good. I'm always impressed by chefs who can do that - especially here where they obviously don't know what a vegetarian is. :\ We had excellent desserts, headed upstairs and fell promptly asleep. Its nice to get to sleep. haha
More on Tours later...
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